Asami can tell when they are nearing the Field of Memories because the entire forest goes silent. It gives off an aura of foreboding that reminds her of the way the scenery stilled as they approached the Realm of Koh. Asami hopes that the Mother of Faces will be not quite as sinister. Koh had both of them feeling shaky for the rest of the day.
"I think I see the clearing up ahead," Korra comments. Her voice sounds strong, in a way that makes Asami wonder if she is forcing it. She reaches for Korra's hand and their fingers quickly tangle together. Korra smiles at her gratefully.
"The Mother of Faces didn't seem too bad in that memory," Asami reminds her. "I mean, she wasn't exactly magnanimous, but it doesn't seem like we'll have to worry about her, you know, stealing our faces or anything."
Korra laughs and Asami can hear her tense anxiety. "I hope not. That was tiring."
"Koh said she was his polar opposite," Asami points out. "That has to mean she's good, doesn't it?"
"I don't know." Korra's face scrunches as she thinks. "I wouldn't say Koh was bad exactly. I mean, he helped Aang and he helped us. But he also tried to steal our faces."
Asami shivers and Korra squeezes her hand. "So he was amoral," she replies. "What's the opposite of amoral?"
Korra shrugs. "No idea. You're the one who had the finest education money can buy."
"And I studied engineering," Asami reminds her. "I know what they say about all-girls' schools, but it's not all grammar and poetry. I was learning how to build airships."
"I didn't mean…" Korra groans. She is adorable when she is flustered. " I just meant that your education actually focused on, well, education. Mine was almost all bending."
"Which I'm sure you loved," Asami replies.
"Well, yeah," Korra answers. "But in hindsight, some lessons on, I don't know, diplomacy or culture or something might have been nice."
"Well, you could have gotten both of those things at Republic City Arts and Sciences," Asami tells her smugly, but the easy smile falls from her face as she squints through the trees ahead. "There's something moving up there."
"What do you mean, something's moving?" Korra asks. "We haven't seen anything alive in hours. Well, in at least one hour."
"I don't know," Asami answers slowly, peering forward. "But I saw movement. I didn't hear anything, so it wasn't a spirit."
"What else is there in the Spirit World other than spirits?" Korra questions to no one in particular, sounding both nervous and extremely confused.
"I don't know," Asami replies. "You're the one who's supposed to be the bridge between worlds. You tell me."
"I left the spirit portals open so I wouldn't have to do that anymore," Korra grumbles. "You know I was never any good at it."
Asami looks over at her. "I don't know for sure, because we weren't exactly best friends back then," she says. "But I'm sure you were great."
Korra rolls her eyes. "What are you even basing that on? You just said you didn't know. Maybe I was average."
"Average for an Avatar," Asami argues. "That's not nothing."
They step into the clearing and they both fall silent. It is immediately apparent that Asami was right about seeing movement. Korra's hand tightens almost painfully around hers. All throughout the meadow, translucent beings float. They seem completely unaware of anything around them, like the people Asami remembers seeing in the Fog of Lost Souls. Just thinking about it makes her shudder.
The meadow is filled with long grass and wildflowers that are eerily still and utterly silent, despite the many inhabitants. It would be gorgeous if not for the ghostly beings. "What are they?" Asami whispers.
"I bet they're memories," Korra replies. "Remember, Iroh said this was where the Mother of Faces keeps the memories she takes."
They move carefully through the meadow, and the ghosts do not seem to notice them. They pass a Water Tribe man with a long, light-colored beard and a stained shirt, kneeling and howling silently over something invisible. They pass a middle aged Earth Nation woman in rags, prematurely wrinkled, hunched over with her hands on her knees, panting and glancing over her shoulder, terrified. They pass a teenaged Fire Nation girl with long, dark hair and uneven bangs, kneeling with her hands behind her back in a position that makes them look chained, sobbing and breathing angry fire.
"You don't think there's a way for her to take our memories so we end up in here, do you?" Asami asks nervously.
"I don't think so." Korra sounds a little too uncertain for Asami's comfort. "Iroh would have warned us if there was, right? Or we would have seen it in the memory."
Ahead of them, Asami spots the pond. The water is impossibly flat and gleams like a mirror. It almost looks like a hole in the earth, dropping into the sky. Well, they are in the spirit world. Asami would not exactly be surprised.
She is quickly learning that, while parts of the Spirit World are absolutely beautiful, it also houses horrors. The stuff of nightmares.
"I bet this pool leads into the pools in Forgetful Valley," Korra comments. "I wonder, if we jumped in, if it would take us back too."
"Somehow that doesn't seem like the best way to travel between worlds," Asami points out, though she supposes if they needed to make a quick escape to the Fire Nation, it could be handy. If they were willing to return here, that is. This place is surprisingly creepy, and she does not blame the spirits for avoiding it.
"How do you think we call her?" Korra asks, looking to her girlfriend.
"In the memory, they just waited," Asami recalls. "But there has to be another way."
"I guess I assumed she'd," Korra shrugs, "just hang out here or something when she wasn't in the human world. Do you think there's a way to summon her?"
"Is summon an offensive term?" Asami inquires, aware that her response is completely unhelpful. "What if we just threw a rock in or something?"
Korra grimaces. "That seems worse than using the word, summon. That's like if someone threw a rock at your house to get you to come outside."
"People do that," Asami points out. "If they're trying to be sneaky."
"Well, excuse me, Ms. I-Dated-My-Father's-Employee-Behind-His-Back. Not all of us spent our adolescence sneaking," Korra retorts.
"I'm sneaky?" Asami feigns offense. "You snuck all the way to Republic City."
"That's completely different," Korra argues. "That was—"
But she breaks off, because the water in the pool is not flat anymore. It is rippling out from the center with increasing speed. Beside her, Asami can hear Korra swallow.
When Kuvira wakes up, she is short of breath, her chest hurts, and she thinks she is dying. Obviously she is dying, but she thinks maybe she is dying on her own, execution or not.
Shou is staring at her, looking much too concerned than Kuvira would like her to. "You're breathing is really irregular," she comments. She studies the clunky glove on her hand with mild disdain. "I think it's from the electrocution."
"Is it… time again?" Kuvira struggles. She cannot get more than a few words out at a time without feeling like she is suffocating. "It… must be."
Shou shakes her head. "I don't think there's much point. So what if you're bending comes back now. You can barely move. Besides, I think one more would probably kill you."
It is true, Kuvira realizes. Her arm is hanging over the side of the bed and she does not have the energy to pick it up. There is no way she can summon the strength to bend. It is frustrating. Once her chi begins to flow freely again, the only thing stopping her from ripping a whole in the side of the palace and escaping will be… her.
"How long… do I have?" she rasps. She squeezes her eyes closed. Speaking is making her dizzy.
"You have another day," Shou tells her. Kuvira sighs and then gasps as a stab of pain shoots through her chest. She does not think she will make it that long. Well, that might be better anyway. It will deprive the resistance of a public execution. Perhaps word will get out that she was tortured to death in captivity. It is torture, isn't it? Perhaps the people of the Earth Nation will decide not to follow a regime that tortures its prisoners, even its valuable ones, in addition to their sentences.
Still, Kuvira imagined when she was building the might Earth Empire that if she did not die an old woman, peacefully in her sleep with a capable protégé to succeed her, she would go out in a blaze of glory, fighting with her people on a battlefield for a noble cause. She did not imagine something this slow and undignified.
"I really am sorry about this," Shou tells her earnestly. "I know that's not… helpful or anything. I just wanted you to know that this wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I signed up. I thought I'd be, I don't know, patrolling the wall or something."
"I know you… were just trying… to save your life," Kuvira assures her. She cannot blame Shou for that. It was strategic risk. Kuvira can understand the decision. Gambling does not always work out the way people expect.
"It wasn't just that," Shou admits. "I still wanted to try to be closer to her. Up until she made me do this. I never thought she could be so ruthless. Now I just wish I was someone else's sister."
"Power does… terrible things… to people," Kuvira replies. "It doesn't mean… she's all bad… She might… even regret it… one day."
"Like you do?" Shou asks softly. Kuvira tries to nod, but then stops as a surge of nauseating pain radiates down her back. Throwing up would be excruciating, and Kuvira would like to avoid it if possible. "I don't get how you can be so understanding of the person who's about to have you killed."
"Because… I remember… being like that… and thinking… I was doing… the right thing," Kuvira manages, though it is a painful struggle. Shou's expression softens.
"Is there anything I can do?" she asks. "I mean I can't… get you anything or anything like that because I'm not allowed to leave this room, but you know, if there's anything you can think of…"
At first, Kuvira wants to say no. She is dying and there is not anything anyone can do about it, but then her eyes focus on the lock of hair that must have fallen across her face as she slept, and she tries and fails to summon the energy to brush away, and then she has an idea.
"You can braid… my hair," she answers, and at first Shou looks surprised, but then she smiles gently and nods.
"Just a regular braid? Just one?"
"Yes," Kuvira breathes. One simple braid, the way she wore her hair in Zaofu, before everything became a mess. If she is going to die, she is at least going to die looking like herself the way she wishes she could be remembered.
There is a slight crumbling sound as Su forms a hole large enough to stick her head through. She sincerely hopes this is the right room. There are only two people in it, which makes her doubt her ability to see through earthbending as much as she ever has. Surely the resistance would have more than one person, one small person, standing watch over their key prisoner. The prisoner that everyone in Omashu knows they are keeping. There are guards stationed outside the door though, and the room is round and located just where Princess Azula said it would be.
She pokes her head above ground and nearly hits it on the underside of a large, low piece of furniture that she thinks must be a bed. Not far away, she can see the feet of the other person in the room. She appears to be sitting down. The only thing Su hears is loud, uneven breathing.
She lowers her head and closes the hole. "I can't see Kuvira, but I think we're in the right place," she tells Opal and Mako. "There's only one other person present. If we're quiet, we can take her out and get Kuvira without the guards outside even knowing anything is wrong."
"You think this is right?" Mako raises an eyebrow. "What if it's not? What if we show ourselves and it turns out Kuvira isn't there?"
"We'll take out the people in the room and keep looking," Su answers decisively. "We outnumber them. It should be easy." She digs out another few steps to her right and tries not to think about what will happen if their presence in the palace is discovered before they have found Kuvira. "If we come up here, we should be in the open," she tells them. "Get ready to bend."
With Mako and Opal beside her, Su pulls the earth above their heads open and Opal launches them up with a gust of air.
The first thing Su notices is the woman who was previously sitting in the chair. She has jumped to her feet and she is wearing some sort of glove, similar to something she thinks she might have seen on Asami Sato's hand once. She moves to entrap her in shackles of stone, but the woman throws her hands up. "I'm not a bender."
"What's that on your hand?" Su demands.
"It's a chi blocker glove." The woman moves and Su does not drop her stance, but then she pulls the glove off her hand and drops it on the ground with a thunk.
Su's eyes narrow. "Who are you?" she demands.
"My name is Shou," the woman rushes to answer. "My job was to guard her and make sure she didn't get her bending back." That explains the distinct lack of guards in the room, Su realizes. Without Kuvira's bending and with a glove that instantly weakens her, there is no way out. "Are you… Suyin Beifong?"
Su hesitates, unsure she wants to reveal her identity if she can help it, and then realizes that if no one sees her on the way out, it will be obvious that she was behind the rescue by the end of the week, and she nods.
"I haven't chi blocked her in a while," the girl explains. "So she should be able to bend. She's just…" she nods to the bed, and for the first time since she was kidnapped, Su sets her eyes on Kuvira.
Who does not look at all okay. The back of her shirt is singed and Su can see brown electrical burns spotting her skin. Her body heaves erratically with uneven breaths. Her clothing is soiled. The only part of her that is not a complete mess is her hair. It is braided, the way she used to wear it. It makes her look young. Not at all like the dictator who would have killed them all.
"I don't want her to die," Shou adds quickly. "She seems… good. You can take her. I won't stop you. Just… please make it look convincing. They can't know I let you go."
Su frowns at her. "You're willing to allow us to walk out of here with the resistance's best asset. How do I know you won't send troops after us as soon as we're gone?"
"I never really wanted to be part of the resistance," Shou admits. "It's just that… my sister is the leader, and I thought I'd go to prison if I didn't sign up." She bends down and gingerly picks up the glove. Then she holds it out to Su. "Here, electrocute me, and then take this with you. I don't want to do this job anymore."
Su bites her lip. There is an internal battle raging in her head and Mako and Opal stare at her, waiting for direction. "You can come with us," she finally offers. "I won't force you to stay here if you think that your safety is in danger. We have an airship. We can take you somewhere far away. You'll be safe."
Shou shakes her head. "I can't leave my sister. I talked to Kuvira, and she convinced me that there might still be some good left in her. I'll never forgive myself if I give up on her without knowing for sure."
Su nods sharply. "I understand. I'm sorry to do this." Shou laughs mirthless, and Su does not know why as she slips the glove onto her hand and touches the girl's shoulder. The response is instantaneous. Her back arches, her fists clench shut, and she drops to the ground.
Su turns back to Mako and Opal. Both their eyes are wide, stunned, but they are standing beside each other and Mako already has Kuvira in his arms. "Let's go," she tells them. "She's probably supposed to signal the guards outside every so often so they know she's still alive in here. We don't know how long we have." Not long enough for them to reach the airship before Kuvira's absence is noticed, Su is certain. It took them over an hour to tunnel under the city.
She joins Mako and Opal and kicks the ground so that they sink out of the room. Their cavern beneath the floor is pitch black without Mako's fire, but Su does not want to ask him to light his hand while he is carrying Kuvira. She looks like she has been through enough. It is unfortunate that she is unable to walk though, unable to bend. It take their number of potential fighters from four to two.
"I can feel the way out from here," Su tells them, directing her head toward them, though she knows they cannot see her. "I'll just keep talking, and you both follow the sound of my voice. We're going to start moving. Is everyone ready?"
There is a moment of silence where Su thinks they are nodding, and then a chorus of "Yes."
"Okay," she agrees. "Let's get out of here." She pulls the glove from her hand and drops it on the rock behind her. As they move it will gradually be buried deep in the ground beneath Omashu. Su does not think the world needs weapons like that.
It feels like they have been walking forever when Su finally tells them she can feel the edge of the cliff. "We're getting close. Opal, get ready." Her voice cuts through the darkness.
The airbender's feet ache like she has been walking for miles, but she does not want to use bending to give them a break because she is saving her energy for when they have to fight. Beside her, she can hear Mako's belabored breaths, though he will not voice that Kuvira is getting heavy. Her mother has not spoken of the fact that she is struggling, but Opal can hear the fatigue in her voice. They all underestimated the distance from the wall to the palace and overestimated how quickly they would be able to move.
"The good news is I don't feel anyone coming after us," Su adds. "I'm sure they are—there was no other way for us to get in and out of that room—but they must be pretty far behind. Hopefully that means it took them a while to realize Kuvira was missing."
Opal can still hear the other woman's rasping breaths. It worries her and simultaneously fills her with relief. They will get Kuvira back to Republic City and to a healer. She will be okay. She has to be.
"Opal, when I open up this wall, I want you to shield the three of you with your bending," her mother instructs her.
"But, Mom," Opal protests. "Then I won't be able to fight. It'll just be you against all of them."
"I've got it," Su assures her, though Opal is not convinced. "Mako won't be able to defend himself and Kuvira, and if they get hit, this whole thing will have been for nothing."
"But, Mom—" She feels her voice threatening to crack.
"Opal, no matter what happens, I want you to make sure the three of you get clear of the city. If I'm not with you by the time you get back to where the airship is, you'll have to find somewhere to hide until Wu's escort arrives, okay. You aunt will be with them." There is a pause, and Opal feels like she is supposed to say something, but she is speechless. "You're an adult, Opal. You can handle this. I believe in you. Okay?" her mother presses. She swallows the lump in her throat.
"Okay," she whispers. Intuitively, she knew this was a life-threatening mission. Intuitively, she knew they were three people walking into a compound of hundreds. She just never really took the time to consider what would happen if one of them died, if that person was her mother. But of course, Su would feel responsible for the three of them. Opal is her daughter, and Mako is not related to her, but he is so young, and Kuvira is… whatever Kuvira is to their family.
"Get ready, Opal." She stops walking without warning, and her daughter almost runs into her. "As soon as you see light, I want you to start airbending, and don't stop, no matter what happens. I'm counting on you."
"Okay." Opal nods and readies her arms to start working.
The daylight is blinding. Opal begins to conjure a shield of air before she has even blinked the sting from her eyes. When the world comes into focus, her mother is stepping out onto a rock ledge. There is a loud thud and the sound of something crumbling against the outside of the cliff, and Opal realizes they have already been engaged in combat.
She follows her mother onto the ledge. Several rocks skim off of the sphere around her. Kuvira twitches in Mako's arms. Still alive.
There are five soldiers pinning them to the cliff face from the top of the wall, and Opal watches with baited breath as her mother flings chunks of rock at them simultaneously and uses the time it gives her to move them toward the land bridge. They should have come out closer to it, even if it meant more time in that claustrophobic bubble, even if that was where their emergence would be more anticipated.
Rock is rain down around them. A large piece of earth crumbles against the top of Opal's shield, and she nearly loses her concentration to keep it going. Another rock lands so close to her mother that it ruffles her hair and rips a hole in her sleeve, and it nearly causes her to lose her balance on the rock. They are approaching the land bridge, but Opal can hear the soldiers calling for reinforcements, yelling that Kuvira is getting away. Her mother turns to her.
"Can you jump?" she calls. Opal furrows her brow in confusion.
"What?"
"Can you use your airbending to jump to the bridge?" Su elaborates. "I don't think I'm going to be able to get us all the way there." She glances up at the top of the wall. "There are too many, and they're out of my reach."
Without answering, Opal drops the shield and kicks off the ground, producing a gust that carries them across the gap to the bridge. She hears a cry from behind her as they land, and when she turns, Mako is bleeding from a long, deep gash on his shoulder, Kuvira's body dangling precariously in his injured arm. Her mother runs to him and pulls Kuvira onto her back.
"Are you okay?" she asks quickly. "Can you make it back?"
Mako is breathing heavily, partially from fatigue and partially from pain. He grimaces as he clamps his hand around his bicep, but then he nods. Su stands up, satisfied.
"We have to move quickly," she tells them, already starting to build speed as rocks continue to rain down on them. They are lucky that they are small targets. "Do not fall behind me."
Mako stumbles but then begins to run down the bridge and Opal follows. She is moving intentionally slowly, but she needs to stay close enough to her mother and Kuvira to help them if she is needed. Behind them, the gate opens and soldiers flood out like insects.
"They're after us," Opal calls. They are already halfway across the bridge, and Opal thinks they will make it behind the hills before the soldiers are close enough to them to follow. She thinks they have made it out.
Mako is slowing down and Opal moves toward him. She wraps her arms around his and pulls him. Despite his gasp of pain and near trip, they have to keep moving. They will make it if they keep moving.
Korra and Asami exchange nervous glances and squeeze each other's hands enough that it hurts as the surface of the water breaks. The first thing Korra can see are the tips of six horns that look like they are made of twisted vines. Just as many blank, eyeless faces appear from out of the depths of the pond next. Pointed shoulders that remind Korra of the collar on ceremonial Fire Nation clothing. An entire body composed of gnarled vegetation. Skeleton-like hands with fingers that come to a clawed point at the end of unnaturally long arms. There is an odd beauty to the Mother of Faces as she towers over them. An elegance within the strange. Hundreds of ghostly faces hover around her, and hundreds more float serenely on the surface of the water like petals.
"She could pick us up with one hand," Asami whispers out of the corner of her mouth, and Korra does not disagree. The spirit rises to the height of the statue of Avatar Aang that stands watch over Republic City.
"I am the Mother of Faces," she says, though her lack of eyes make it difficult to discern whether she is talking to them or to the meadow in general. "Through me came separateness. Through me came identity. It is good to see you again, Avatar."
"Oh, uhh, thanks," Korra replies. "I wish I could say the same, but I, uhh, don't remember it. You might remember what happened during harmonic convergence a couple years ago."
"I do not bother myself with such petty struggle between man and spirit," the Mother of Faces replies. "There has been a precarious balance between the two since the beginning of time, each fighting for dominance. I have long since freed myself of the tired dichotomy between the worlds."
"Oh, cool," Korra answers. She can feel the back of her neck heating. This whole situation is awkward. She has no idea how to talk to an interdimensional spirit, especially one who is dropping strong hints that she is older than time itself. "Umm, I have a question for you… if you don't mind? I just need a little bit of help."
"I have helped the Avatar before," the spirit informs her. "I promised him one favor, and I did not get the sense he was satisfied with the way his friends decided to use it."
"Well, you don't have to worry about that this time." Korra gestures between herself and Asami. "We've agreed on what we want to ask you."
There is a pause in which the Mother of Faces appears to be considering her offer, and then she answers. "Very well. I will hear your query."
"Great!" The Avatar restrains herself from pumping a fist into the air in victory. "Wait, I don't have to sacrifice my memories or something to you, do I?"
Slowly, the spirit shakes her heads. "I only take memories that people ask me to take. Everyone is the sum of their experiences, after all. I do not condone the fundamental changing of a person unless it is at their behest."
"Good." Korra nods enthusiastically. "Okay, I think you can help me with a problem. At least, I hope you can. Someone told us to come to you. See, during Harmonic Convergence, I was separated with Raava, the, uhh, Avatar spirit, but you probably knew that, and she was destroyed." She pauses and Asami smiles encouragingly at her. "She was absorbed by Vaatu, and I managed to get her back, but when I did, my link to my past lives was broken. I thought they were gone forever, but then I was talking to Iroh—he runs a tea shop on the other side of those woods over there—and he told me that spirit energy can't be created or destroyed, just like regular energy, and that they were probably around somewhere. So I was just, uhh, wondering if you could give me any tips on where to find them."
It is an extreme simplification of the story, Korra knows, but the Mother of Faces seems to think it over, her hands flexing dangerously.
"Your friend is right," she finally replies. "Spirit energy is eternal. It can be transformed but it will always be here. Your past lives exist. A face can never be permanently destroyed, as long as there remains a soul who remembers it."
"That's perfect!" Korra exclaims. "They were all Avatars. There are statues of them and shrines to them all over the place. How do I get them back?"
"I can bestow them upon you," the spirit tells her. "I am the great possessor of forgotten memories, after all. But I find that the lives of the Avatars are out of my reach."
Korra feels herself deflate. "I couldn't access their memories through the Tree of Time either," she mutters.
"It is unusual," the Mother of Faces continues. "But not unheard of."
"So there's a way to undo it?" Korra asks. She is trying not to get her hopes up, but there is a distinct tone of relief in her voice.
"You believe that your lives were absorbed by Vaatu," she recalls. "They were not severed from him when he was destroyed?"
"I don't know," Korra answers, confused. "I mean, I got Raava because my frien casted a light over him to reveal the light within… or something."
"But she had previously been vanquished," the Mother of Faces replies. "She was born anew when you retrieved her. A reincarnation of the same spirit. She was no longer attached to your former selves."
Korra grimaces. "I guess not."
"Your other lives are lost with Vaatu," the Mother of Faces tells her. "But he will not be gone forever and neither will they. When Vaatu's connection to the Tree of Time is restored, I will regain access to the memories within him."
"But won't he be… born anew then too?" Korra furrows her brow. "How come he'll still be connected to my past lives if Raava wasn't?"
"The answer to that question is simple," the spirit answers. "You did not absorb them before you vanquished him. Physical contact is required at the time of his defeat. That and the presence of Raava in your body."
"That's it," Korra mutters as realization washes over her. "I defeated Vaatu with spirit bending." She looks over at Asami and shrugs. "It seemed more mature." Asami smirks.
"As you may know, Avatar, Vaatu will reform naturally from the darkness within you. When that happens, you will have to reconnect the memories he is holding to the Tree of Time. When you have done that, you may call upon me again, and I will return your past lives to Raava. Goodbye, Avatar."
She offers a shallow bow and then she sinks back into the pool, the water seeming to climb her twisted body and drag her down. When she is completely below the surface with an underwhelming ploop, Korra looks over at Asami.
"She was helpful," the engineer comments.
"Yeah." Korra frowns. "Unfortunately, Vaatu won't reform himself for another ten thousand years?"
Asami's eyes widen. "That's… a while."
"Yeah," Korra repeats with a bitter laugh. "I guess that means I'll never see them again." She sighs and tries to reconcile herself to what has been her reality for the past three years. "I guess I already knew that, but it was nice to have hope."
"Wait, Korra—"
She shakes her head. "I'm fine. Let's just finish our vacation. At least now we can relax."
"No, but Korra, wait," Asami insists, and Korra looks back at her questioningly. "What exactly does the Fog of Lost Souls do?"
"Tenzin said it—" Korra breaks off, her eyes going wide, and suddenly she can feel herself filling with a confusing mix of hope and dread. "It consumes you with your inner darkness." A smile grows across her face, though she has never been less certain that what she is about to suggest is a good idea. "Asami, we can reform Vaatu."
A/N: First things first, this is the tenth chapter. I have eighteen chapters outlined right now (still subject to change), so that means we are officially more than halfway through this story. Woo, milestones!
Okay, second thing. I got five reviews on the last chapter, guys. That's... disappointing. To say the least. I don't withhold chapters until I get a certain number of reviews because I feel like that's a dick move, but feedback is still a huge motivator, and there is definitely a correlation between the number of reviews I get and how quickly the next chapter goes up. Also, they make me feel good about myself. Please review.
Last thing, just so everyone knows what's coming, the next chapter will focus exclusively on Su and her people, and the chapter after that will focus exclusively on Korra and Asami. I know that's not ideal because a lot of you have a favorite plot and you have to go a chapter without seeing it, but this is really how it works out best. Anyway, see you all at the next update.
